Screaming Sounds Like Silence
by Ray.A.Callen
Summary: Time heals all wounds. She knows thats not true and when her secret comes to light Cameron has two choices: Tell the truth and quit or lie more. Which will she choose or will she pick the third option of ending it all... Self-harm, attempted suicde, abuse


**A Silent Cry**

**I just would like to say that I own nothing of HouseMD the characters or anything. I own Chapter 2 onwards and carried on from JaneWayGirl's abandoned story. **

**Okay so I don't own this but I will own the plot following this and it should turn out good so please read but please DON'T do anything like this!**

**Prologue:**

Scars. They can be emotional or physical. The physical, while seemingly less complex than the emotional can be just as twisted and just as meaningful. In some instances, they mark us more emotionally than they do physically – if that makes sense. In some cases, the emotional and the physical are intertwined. The physical are there forever, little white lines that can sometimes speak more clearly than words can, while memories can be forgotten with time.

However, as life often throws us more slings and arrows than outrageous fortune – although Shakespeare would argue they go hand in hand, we usually don't forget the memories that have thus scarred us. They remain ingrained in our minds as permanent as the white marks on our skin. The only difference between them is that outside, the emotional scars are usually hidden. It is true that hiding emotional scars can be easier than hiding the physical. One can usually, if practiced enough, erect a mask of some sort, so as to protect one's secrets. But the physical are more troublesome to mask. We are tasked with the unwanted necessity of making sure our secrets remain hidden. We cannot always be perfect in our hiding of them. The occasional slip of perhaps wearing something too revealing, or forgetting to cover the showing scars with makeup can set everything off. After all, it only takes one single event to give everything away.

Before continuing, however, it is important to mention that physical scars can also be positive in the eyes of the possessor. They can be trophies of our actions that some of us proudly display as glorified memories to impress others. However, in this case, they are the little white lines that are the constant painful reminder of a particularly dark past. Engrained on the skin forever, all one can do is hope that time will fade them; that we did not cut so deeply as to leave such a mark forever. But time rarely delivers, and so the scars remain resolutely betraying.

**Chapter One**

Cameron was tired. She was tired of everything; her work, her monotonous routines, her lack of social life due to House, House, and, especially, House. He had become even more annoying over the gloomy holidays, first because of the whole Tritter affair, but then because of his smugness that he'd won. It seemed that he was getting on her nerves a lot more these days, and it was extremely wearing to Cameron.

Sighing, she sat heavily on her bed, although her slight skinny frame was anything but heavy. She laid down, not bothering to discard her work clothes, and closed her eyes. She was just so tired. She desperately wanted a break, but knew that if she had too much time on her own, her mind would do her in. There was so much of her life that she just wanted to forget, and on particularly bad days the only way to get away from it all was to immerse herself in her work. Of course, she used to have another coping mechanism, but she desperately hoped she had put it behind her.

Tracing her fingers unconsciously along her exposed hip bone, she felt the small scars that held more than just bad memories. Over time she had forced herself to accept them as just who she was. They marked failures in her past, and forever reminded her of them.

She did not think of these little white lines often though. It was only when she was particularly depressed or run down. When she was happy, she mercifully was able to forget everything and live in the moment. But these days those occasions were becoming increasingly rare. A part of her attributed that to her boss, House. There was something about the man that made her both want to never have to see him again, and kiss him right on the spot.

Cameron wasn't sure what attracted her to House. He was a misanthropic bastard with a tendency to be very harsh and rude. He also knew how to make her feel even worse when she was vulnerable. However, despite all of that, she still felt strangely attracted to him. Perhaps it was as House suggested; she liked damaged people. He was definitely as damaged as she was, perhaps more so. She could not tell. However, she was sure that this was not the whole key to her attraction towards him. Scary and damaged was not enough, in her mind. There had to be something more.

But the rest of the story of her attraction remained a mystery so far, and Cameron was too tired to try and contemplate it further. It had been a particularly trying day at work, owing to the fact that she had pulled an all-nighter previously to try and diagnose a patient who turned out to simply have a very resistant strain of Pneumonia. She opened her eyes long enough to set her alarm for the next morning, and then she was out for the night, her untouched dinner still in the now finished microwave.

"We have a patient," came House's inevitable words.

Cameron looked up from her morning coffee and almost sighed aloud. She had fallen asleep early the night before, but had been woken up half way through the night from hunger. Although annoying and unpleasant the experience had been, she had felt the sense of déjà vu. Lying awake in her dark bedroom, she remembered the days upon days of hunger and tiredness. She had shut her eyes tightly, ignored the hunger, and had tried to fall back asleep. However, by the time she had, she was woken up again by her alarm clock signalling that it was time to get ready for work.

"Symptoms?" Cameron asked in a half asleep voice.

"Well, not if you aren't more enthusiastic about it," said a snarky House.

Cameron rolled her eyes, and House continued.

"17, female Caucasian, car crash victim,-" House began, but was interrupted by Chase.

"Hold on, why are we treating a car crash victim? What's there to diagnose?"

"Well, as I have already been subjected to Cameron's un-enthusiasm, and interrupted so rudely by a _Brit_, I'm not sure I have the heart to continue," House answered, sarcastically.

"House, get over yourself and just tell us her symptoms," said Foreman exasperatedly.

House let out a sarcastic gasp of surprise.

"The tall black man speaks!"

Cameron finished her now cold coffee, and looked into its dark depths murderously, clenching the handle in a vice like grip so as to prevent herself from lashing out at House. He always managed to get on her nerves right when she didn't need him to.

House seemed to have decided enough was enough, and was nearly finished writing the symptoms down on his cherished Whiteboard.

Looking up, Cameron read.

**Car Crash Victim; Symptoms:**

_Paranoia_

_Weight loss_

_Anaemia_

_Fainting spells_

_Bruises to her hips_

She stared at them, confused.

"House, what exactly are we trying to do here?" she asked him.

"We are trying to find out the cause of her car crash."

At the disbelieving faces of his 'ducklings', he responded, "believe me, it was this or double clinic duty for all of us. I wouldn't even be able to pawn mine off to you three seeing as Cuddy now owns my ass and watches me with more cunning attentiveness than Chase looks at his hair with in a mirror."

"So you're saying that we have to find out the reason she crashed her car, something that the ER or police could do just as well, because you didn't want clinic duty?" Foreman asked, sighing heavily.

"That just about sums it up. Chase, get a tox-screen, and check her blood alcohol levels while you're at it. Foreman, take her for a CT, and make sure it isn't something neurological. Cameron, go get a patient history. Her family is waiting inside her room. They are the ones that described her paranoia, fainting spells and weight loss to the ER docs. Double check everything, and don't trust the patient's answers. Now scram," he finished, pulling out his Gameboy.

With a collective sigh, the three of them got up and did as they were told. The whole affair seemed pointless to Cameron. There was probably something House wasn't telling them all. She hated it when he did that.


End file.
